[zk]

[quote=scaredyclassic][quote=Blogstar]
Maybe there are ways that there is less imitation and no big problems moving on if we change the predispostion to negativity about anything but a nuclear monogamous household and don’t teach our kids it.

Like you said we are wired differently than we think does what we are doing really respect that or are we respecting current family dynamic religion and happier if we do because we are stupid. I know I am can’t handle anything different either but admit it could be stupidity at play too.[/quote]
wel, yeah…

but im talking more about just living in the world the way it is…not the way it could be…[/quote]

In my opinion, the crux of the problem is this: We are not wired to live in a nuclear family. We are wired to live in tribes. Tribes where the whole tribe helps watch over our kids after they reach a certain age. Today’s family arrangements (and the similar arrangements in most cultures since civilization began) are not really compatible with our wiring.

We can’t go back to living in tribes. So what do we do? I don’t think there’s a good answer. There might be a better answer. (Better than the one we have now, but still not good.) And in order to find a better answer, we’d need to first be honest with ourselves about who we are. About how humans are wired. With religion in the way, it would be pretty difficult for any such understanding to get any traction. To become widespread. Religious people only want to hear about how god made us. They don’t want to hear that we evolved in bands and tribes and therefore we’re not wired to live in their god’s preferred arrangements.

Of course, religion isn’t the only problem. I think that any large-scale, thoughtful, cooperative, realistic, non-judgmental reconsideration of the basic family unit is beyond the ability of such a combative species, with or without religion.

In the meantime, the best we can do is try to figure out how to best live in the world as it is, not the world as it should be, (as scaredy said), while being honest about our wiring (as Russ said).

[zk]

[quote=Aecetia]”The current Ebola virus’s hyper-evolution is unprecedented; there has been more human-to-human transmission in the past four months than most likely occurred in the last 500 to 1,000 years. Each new infection represents trillions of throws of the genetic dice.”

A lame and disappointing article. Just another fear monger with incomplete and incorrect information. He’s afraid that ebola could go airborne. But no human virus has ever changed its mode of transmission:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/scientists-say-ebolas-transmission-route-unlikely-to-have-changed-1413475957

And the Canadian researchers did not prove that ebola “could be transmitted by the respiratory route from pigs to monkeys.”

http://healthmap.org/site/diseasedaily/article/pigs-monkeys-ebola-goes-airborne-112112

Nevermind the sensational title of the above link. Read the article.

[zk]

Hurt more than they helped, I meant.

[zk]

[quote=CA renter]May they (collective feminists, not you personally) rot in hell. They have destroyed so many lives.

[/quote]
I don’t think that’s fair. Even assuming they’ve hurt more than they harmed (which I don’t agree with). They were and are doing what they thought was best for women.

Obviously women, to paraphrase you, have been getting screwed for millenia. (Insert your own joke here).

So feminists have been trying to fix that. Whatever their results, it’s pretty hard to argue with their intentions. I’m not sure how you can rail against men for having beat up and held down women for eons and then rail against feminists for trying their best to fix it. It’s obviously an extremely complicated subject, and to expect feminists to get it perfectly right on what is essentially the first try is absurd.

[zk]

Interesting article about the overreaction to ebola.

[zk]

[quote=NicMM]
CA Renter, you nailed it. That’s what I wanted to express but hard to put the words together for. I am a woman of an intellectual type. The way that my parents raised me up was to focus my skills and capabilities and ignore my appearance. I used to feel embarrassed when receiving compliments on my look and used to not give compliments to the looks of my girl friends. That gave me a disadvantage on building relationships with my friends. As I grew older, I started to understand the beautiful look of a person actually IS a reflection of some internal quality of her (especially for an adult). It requires lots of knowledge and lots of work and persistency to achieve and maintain that, same as to be proficiency to any skill.

Therefore, a sincere praise to the look of a friend is as important as a sincere praise of her work, skills, quality… etc. It is a way to show support.

Now I give lots of compliment and do lots of Facebook Likes to my friends, and receive lots back as well. Those small things make my days happier.

NicMM[/quote]

Seems to me that took a lot of contorting to make it sound like superficial compliments aren’t really superficial.

Your comment that “That gave me a disadvantage on building relationships with my friends” says a lot to me. People like friends that make them feel good. And, in our society, apparently, if you’re not complimenting your women friends on their looks, you’re not making them feel good. In general.

Which is what I’m taking away from this thread so far. Our society really is very superficial; it really does value appearance (especially women’s) vastly.

I suppose it’s human nature. It’s probably been this way in most or all societies throughout history. I guess I’m a bit foolish for having, for all these years, thought we’d advanced past that. I mean, we grew up hearing that what’s inside a woman is more important than her superficial appearance. But I guess for most people it didn’t sink in. Either that or our natural programming encourages superficiality, and our artificial programming isn’t enough to overcome that.

[zk]

[quote=sdduuuude]I’m not on facebook. The whole idea of it seems odd, especially when I can put anything I want online on a web site if I have to.

However, I’m not sure that the implication of “people post pictures of themselves and other people say they look beautiful” is that their self worth is tied up in their appearance.

My thought is this. If someone posts their picture on facebook, nobody is going to say “wow, you look intelligent” or “you look like you have good values.”

Furthermore, would you really expect anyone to post “Wow, you have really let yourself go. Ever hear of a makeover ?”

From a statistical sampling point of view, this is a biased sample, not worth drawing conclusions from.

This isn’t to say that Facebookers aren’t fishing for compliments.[/quote]

Two thoughts: There are plenty of other compliments to give. You’re a giver, you’re sweet, you make me laugh, you care, etc. And you see those occasionally. But add up all non-beauty compliments and they don’t number a tenth of beauty compliments.

Also, you rarely see men get or even give compliments (compared to women). Why is that?

[zk]

[quote=spdrun]
Putin gets a lot of encouragement. Maybe you should try to take over an Eastern European country if you want sycophants.[/quote]

Or, if you want elephants instead of sycophants you could take over a small African country. Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any elephants in Liberia.

[zk]

Men post pictures of just themselves much less frequently than women. And when they do, their friends, male or female, rarely feel the need to tell them they look good.

[zk]

[quote=bearishgurl]

[quote=all]

I thought communiques from the county school districts and bearishgurl’s college campus being quarantined/evacuated is overreaction.[/quote]

zk, SWC never has been and is not “my” campus. I’ve taken several evening classes there (more than 20 yrs ago) but my kids have never attended classes there. They went directly to university after HS.

[cont’d to new thread][/quote]

“all” is not me. Not sure where he/she got the idea that that’s your campus.

Good info on the other thread about colleges, bg. Thanks.

[zk]

[quote=CA renter]

“10 Nefarious Conspiracies Proven True”

http://listverse.com/2013/05/02/10-nefarious-conspiracies-proven-true/

———-

There’s the story of “weapons of mass destruction” that didn’t exist in Iraq.

And I’m still not convinced we’ve heard the end of 9/11 investigation results.

http://www.ae911truth.org/

And the heavy put buying on United and American Airlines just days before 9/11. I’m offering up the rebuttal to the “conspiracy theorists” but they simply say that these traders didn’t have any links to al Qaeda, which wasn’t what the “conspiracy theorists” were suggesting in the first place.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/putcall.asp

And, of course, there’s the EPA telling NY residents that it was safe to breathe the air after 911 (and President Bush telling everyone in the U.S. to “go shopping”!).

“Three days after 9/11, following questionable air sampling techniques, a spokesperson for the EPA said that levels of asbestos were either at low levels, negligible, or undetectable.

“I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that the air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink,” Whitman said one week after 9/11.”

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/oct/the-9-11-cover-up

And just a tiny bit of info about the infiltration and destruction of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/05/fbi-occupy-wall-street_n_2410783.html%5B/quote%5D

Before I run down the rest of the “conspiracy theories,” I want to talk about what I see as a conspiracy. As I said before in this thread, “I know [the government lies], and sometimes even for malevolent reasons. “ The government lying to us isn’t necessarily a conspiracy. When I say conspiracy theorists are basically always wrong, I’m talking about government plots. Faking the moon landing. Perpetrating the 9/11 attacks. That sort of thing. I’m going to go out of order:

#8 Fasicst Plot to take over America: This got nowhere. No one in government would go along.

#9 Gulf of Tonkin: This was a lie to cover up a mistake. Not a conspiracy.

America perpetrated 9/11: Just lunacy. No evidence that stands up to scrutiny.

Infiltrate Occupy Wall Street: This was a lot of government bungling. They got a bit overzealous.

#7 False witness on Iraq: A lie, to be sure. Not really a conspiracy.

#5 Asbestos: This was a corporate cover up to keep a company alive. Quite nasty, and you could call it a corporate conspiracy.

Safe to breathe 9/11: I’m not sure about this one. Having read about it, it looks like a lot of government incompetence and some lying. I work for the federal government. It’s a terribly-run operation in the best of times. At a time like the aftermath of 9/11, I would expect nothing better than confusion, chaos, and utter incompetence. (Except, of course, from the air traffic controllers, who are relatively free of red tape and who did a masterful job.)

These next three could, from a certain point of view, be considered government conspiracies. They were all extended misinformation campaigns designed to sway public opinion. There was no direct action, though. So really, it’s just a lot of lying.

WMD in Iraq: They strategically and purposely lied to us for the purpose of rushing to a war they wanted.

#4 Cointelpro: This was a concerted effort to target the entire left wing: anyone liberal was seen as a danger and slandered in print.

#6 Mockingbird: The purpose was to influence media toward hatred and fear of Soviet Communism. Led to rise of McCarthy.

Here’s one that does rise to the level of conspiracy:
#10 Poison Alcohol: The FBI purposely poisoned thousands of Americans. Horrible.

So, I’m going to come off my position of basically always wrong. The U.S. government did, at least once, conspire against some of its people. I do maintain that the notion that conspiracy theorists are right more often than not is preposterous.

[zk]

[quote=CA renter]
“10 Nefarious Conspiracies Proven True”

http://listverse.com/2013/05/02/10-nefarious-conspiracies-proven-true/
[/quote]
#1 Heart attack gun: The CIA has a covert way to kill someone? That’s not a conspiracy. That’s part of their job. The speculation about the people they killed is just speculation.

#2 Domestic terrorism: It never happened. There was a plan by the military that no government leaders agreed to.

#3 Scientology attack: Yes, the church of scientology relentlessly attacked this woman. Attacking one obscure person is such a narrow and small operation that it’s not really the kind of conspiracy that is all that hard to get away with. I’ll agree that attack-one-not-that-well-known-person conspiracies do exist.

It’s a long list and I have to get to work. More later.

[zk]

[quote=Aecetia]
Will you settle for hard to catch?

[/quote]

If you show me an expert who says it’s hard to catch I will. Professor Gershoni said it’s “relatively hard to catch.” Not the same. And a long, long way from “almost impossible.” (Depending on what you’re relative comparison was, of course.)

[zk]

[quote=scaredyclassic]

In fact I would say it is a fact that women say they want things other than what they claim or even think they want.

[/quote]

[quote=scaredyclassic]

Theoretically I think all kinds of bs.
What I actually do? Different story
[/quote]

Wow. A couple of classics from scaredyclassic.

[zk]

[quote=kev374]

The problem here is that there are various “experts” all over the place stating how it is almost impossible to catch Ebola…YET… a nurse fully dressed in ridiculously protective gear got it, oh we don’t know how sorry…BUT BUT It’s impossible to catch..[/quote]

The problem here is that you’re making stuff up. Show me where a single expert said “it’s almost impossible to catch.”

[Author]

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